Two months after Rupert Murdoch’s decision to erect a subscription paywall around the websites of The Times and The Sunday Times, thus removing their content from search engines, the bold experiment is having a marked effect on the rest of British media. There are many who still wish the 79-year-old mogul well, hopeful that he is at the vanguard of a cultural shift that will save newspapers. Yet elsewhere there is dismay among analysts, advertisers, publicists and even some reporters on the papers.

Faced with a collapse in traffic to thetimes.co.uk, some advertisers have simply abandoned the site. Rob Lynam, head of press trading at the media agency MEC, whose clients include Lloyds Banking Group, Orange, Morrisons and Chanel, says, “We are just not advertising on it. If there’s no traffic on there, there’s no point in advertising on there.” Lynam says he has been told by News International insiders that traffic to The Times site has fallen by 90 per cent since the introduction of charges. “That was the same forecast they were giving us prior to registration and the paywall going up, so whether it’s a reflection on reality or not, I don’t know.”

» via The Independent

Federal communications regulators said Wednesday that they were considering whether wireless devices should be subject to different Internet traffic rules than telephone and cable lines, in a potential victory for carriers.

At issue is net neutrality, a term that means high-speed Internet providers should not block or slow information, or make Web sites pay to reach users more quickly.

» via The New York Times

What is it about Netflix that causes critics to misread it so badly? Call it the innovator’s paradox: Netflix forged an identity by building a simple business—DVD delivery by mail—that had never been done before. The very fact that this DVD-by-mail idea connected so deeply with consumers led many observers to think that was all that Netflix could or would ever do. Instead, the DVD delivery service—while still vital to Netflix’s revenue—looks more like the Trojan horse of a much wider strategy designed to change how Americans watch filmed entertainment.

The company’s critics have also tended to focus on technological platforms, rather than what consumers actually want. Netflix, like Amazon, has built its relationship with customers extremely carefully and successfully—some 15 million people now send Netflix money every month. (How many nonutility companies can boast that?) As long as it continues to keep its customers happy, it should be able to transfer them to whatever platform—DVDs by mail, streaming over the Xbox or Wii or set-top boxes, the iPad, the iPhone—those customers want.

» via Slate

But for all the attention and money these apps and Web sites are getting, adoption has so far been largely confined to pockets of young, technically adept urbanites. Just 4 percent of Americans have tried location-based services, and 1 percent use them weekly, according to Forrester Research. Eighty percent of those who have tried them are men, and 70 percent are between 19 and 35.

» via The New York Times

techspotlight:

LONDON – It’s been in print for over a century, but in future the Oxford English Dictionary — the authoritative guide to the English language — may only be available online.

Oxford University Press, the publisher, said Sunday that burgeoning demand for the dictionary’s online version has far outpaced demand for the printed versions.

By the time the lexicographers behind the dictionary finish revising and updating the latest edition — a gargantuan task that will take many more years — publishers are doubtful there will still be a market for the printed form. The online Oxford English Dictionary now gets 2 million hits a month from subscribers. The current printed edition — a hefty 20-volume, 750 pound ($1,165) set published in 1989 — has sold about 30,000 sets in total.

I’m certain my grandkids will never dial a phone number, or even have one. It’s time to say goodbye to ten digits along with the world’s oldest social network.  While we’re at it, let’s kill phone-tree mazes, do-not-call lists…everything associated with phone numbers.

Don’t misconstrue what I’m saying. This isn’t the demise of phone calls.  Far from it.  People will still talk on their phones.  They just want the service to be simple and fun, which won’t entail punching digits into a device to start a conversation.

» via TechCrunch

The newspaper USA Today is making the most dramatic overhaul of its staff in its 28 year history as it de-emphasizes its print edition and ramps up its effort to reach more readers and advertisers on mobile devices.

The makeover outlined to staffers on Thursday will result in about 130 layoffs this fall, the publisher of USA Today, David L. Hunke said, which is about 9 percent of the paper’s 1,500 employees. Mr. Hunke did not specify which departments would be hardest hit.

The management shake-up affects both the newspaper’s business operations and newsroom.

» via The New York Times

soupsoup:

Game changer.